MathFiction: Wang's Carpets (Greg Egan)

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

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Wang's Carpets (1995)

Greg Egan
(click on names to see more mathematical fiction by the same author)
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This short story about a life form based on Wang Tiles first appeared in 1995 in Greg Bear's New Legends collection but was later expanded into an entire novel. For more information, see my entry on the novel that grew out of it, Egan's Diaspora.

Contributed by Catherine Asaro

I enjoyed your section on Wang/s Carpets/Dispora by Greg Egan. He does a brilliant job. I wrote a 6000 word essay on Wang's Carpets years ago and felt like I barely scratched the surface. His ideas are brilliant. The essay is called "Strange Loops of Wonder." It first appeared in Tangent magazine and was later reprinted in Projections: Science Fiction in Literature & Film edited by Lou Anders.

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Works Similar to Wang's Carpets

According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:

Diaspora by Greg Egan
Luminous by Greg Egan
Transition Dreams by Greg Egan
Dark Integers by Greg Egan
Distress by Greg Egan
The Planck Dive by Greg Egan
The Eternal Flame [Orthogonal Book Two] by Greg Egan
Incandescence by Greg Egan
Oracle by Greg Egan
Into Darkness by Greg Egan

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Categories:

Genre	Science Fiction,
Motif	Aliens,
Topic	Computers/Cryptography, Real Mathematics, Logic/Set Theory,
Medium	Short Stories,

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Exciting News: The total number of works of mathematical fiction listed in this database recently reached a milestone. The 1,500th entry is The Man of Forty Crowns by Voltaire. Thanks to Vijay Fafat for writing the summary of that work (and so many others). I am also grateful to everyone who has contributed to this website. Heck, I'm grateful to everyone who visited the site. Thank you!

(Maintained by Alex Kasman, College of Charleston)